Disclaimer: See chapter 1
Chapter 7
It was a lovely day, bright and sunny for the first time in weeks, so Rowena had decided to take a walk outside. Hogwarts was such a different environment to what she was used to – there were days when she got so tired of its stone walls and empty halls that she just needed to get out of the place for a few hours.
Today happened to be one of those days, and her wanderings had led her to the edge of the massive lake that marked one of the borders of the grounds. She remembered how Godric had insisted on sailing across it when they had first arrived, and then discovering that it had half-frozen and having to trudge across ice the rest of the way. Godric had loved it, but she could remember the uneasiness she felt as she saw huge shadows move below her.
It was because she was lost in her not-so-fond memories that she missed the first few shouts of her name,
"Lady Ravenclaw!"
She turned quickly, trying to find the source of the noise, eventually finding it a bit further on down the lake from where she was. A small figure was waving excitedly at her. It took her a second to recognise who it was; Berkley Vollnison, the Animal Care and Husbandry tutor. They'd passed each other several times in the halls but he'd always had some odd creature in his arms or she'd been rushing to go deal with some emergency. It occurred to her that she had never really had a proper conversation with him yet, and as he'd arrived at Hogwarts over a fortnight ago, it really was past time that she did so.
He seemed to be fishing, probably with a net as there was no rod in sight. As she wandered over, she watched him throw some sort of bait into the water and wondered at what he thought he might be catching; she'd never seen any sort of fish in the lake save those large shadows her first day here.
"Please, sit, Lady." He gestured to the bench he was sitting on; Rowena hesitated a moment before doing so. It was as she predicted, the bench was just too small for her and so she was stuck in that awful knees-around-ears position. A little jealously, she noticed that Berkley's feet barely scraped the ground.
"Just Rowena," she said, shifting uncomfortably in her seat; the stone was freezing cold. "We're all colleagues here, there is no purpose in titles." Besides what would it matter when the students arrived? There were members of both the English and Scottish royal families coming; how could a simple thain's daughter compare to that?
"Ah, but does your father not own the very land that we sit on?"
"He did. He presented it to the four of us when we left though, I believe it is now under both Godric's and Salazar's names."
"I see. But nonetheless, titles are titles and should be used until otherwise invited... Rowena." It sounded like he was reciting some age-old teaching, she was curious as to why he'd have cause to have something like that drummed into him. Berkley threw a bit more bait into the water and Rowena's eyes followed it as it followed a gentle curve and hit the water. It was because of this she noticed that there was no net.
"How is he going to bring in the fish then..." she muttered to herself quietly; although not as quietly as she thought as Berkley seemed to overhear her words.
"And why would I want to do that?" He looked rather amused, at what Rowena couldn't guess.
"Why else would you fish, if not to bring the fish in afterwards?" She was rather confused by it all now, not the least by the smile on his face.
"Ah but you see I am not fishing, so there is no need or desire to bring them in."
"Then what..." She was interrupted by his hand coming up.
"Here." He picked up her hand, seemingly unaware of the affront he caused her, and placed some of the bait in it. "Hold out your hand like this," he held his arm straight out with the hand cupped, "and wait."
She copied his position, feeling slightly silly while doing so, and waited. And waited. And waited. She felt her arm getting tired and still there was no sign of anything happening. In fact, apart from the two of them, there seemed to be no sign of life at all. Not even a bird in the sky.
She might have followed up on that thought, or even raised the point to Berkley had the silence not been interrupted at that point.
A huge tentacle broke the surface of the lake and dived at the pair of them. Rowena froze to the spot, too terrified to even move, let alone scream. It wavered in its course for only a moment before moving slightly left so it was aiming directly at her, or rather her outstretched arm. It shot at her, nearly faster than she could follow...
And then stopped. Just short of her hand.
It then quite carefully and delicately scooped the bait out of her hands, before slipping back into the water again. All that remained of its brief appearance was a few ripples and a slimy residue left on Rowena's hand.
Struck mute, she turned slowly to Berkley, who was beaming happily of all things.
"Well, what do you think? There's a mated pair down there, beautiful creatures, just beautiful."
It wasn't exactly what Rowena had in mind, but then again she couldn't really voice what she was really thinking or else risk turning the air blue around her.
"They're," she squeaked, "they're lovely. But I have to be somewhere else. I'm going now."
She stood up after a few attempts one-handed, not daring to touch anything with the slime. A rictus grin carefully plastered on her face, she backed away slowly. Berkley watched her for a few seconds, smiling, before turning back to face the lake.
It was at this point that she chose to run. So much for being tired of stone walls and empty halls.
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